Mental Health, Mentalism and Sanism

Toward Epistemic Justice: A Critically Reflexive Examination of ‘Sanism’ and Implications for Knowledge Generation

“…She argues that particular institutional and colonized sites may create conditions in which critical reflexivity does the opposite of its intentions, for example "when the issues that workers can or cannot discuss are determined by their organizations" (Badwall, 2016, p. 16) or are "contingent upon colonial continuities designed to govern the parameters of what can be reflected upon" (p. 17). While deeper engagement with this critique is beyond the scope of the present paper, it is important to acknowledge that sanism is inextricable from other forms of oppression (Poole & Jivrav, 2015). As such, the problem of epistemic injustice should be explored further within the context of intersecting oppressions and prejudices, such as the racialization or gendering of Mad bodies.…”